Friday, November 25, 2011

Here's a simple card I made recently for my aunt. It features my new favourite background stamp - envelope pattern from Hero Arts. What I haven't shown is how many 'out takes' it took to get a card base that looked halfway decent. Using A2 size stamps is a bit trickier than I imagined. Or maybe I'm just 'background challenged'? Anyone got any hints or tips?

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Friends of mine are expecting a baby at the end of the year. They know it's a little boy, so I thought I might as well get a head start on the card.

I love PTI's 'Hanging Out' stamp set but couldn't justify buying it as I have a couple of similar sets. Here's my take on the washing line using the string from Banner Builder, posts and grass cut with my cricut and images from a Quickutz die set. The 'pegs' (clothes pins) are the ends of little brown brads:

Friday, November 18, 2011

I've been storing my dies in a 'display book', but the clear pages have started tearing as I've been pulling dies in and out. That's why I was so excited to see Heather Nichols' post here about a new way of organising her dies. I store some of my clear and cling stamps in a folder and thought it would make sense to add another folder with dies. We have Office Max here too and I was hoping that maybe I would find the same [IN]PLACE line had reached our shores.

No such luck, but I did find some sturdy A4 zip pockets at a local stationery store. I kept one at full size for storing border dies:

And used my sewing machine to stitch the others to create either 2 or 3 pockets to hold smaller dies:

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I needed a few easy-to-mail cards for my stash. Haven't inked up PTI's Round and Round anniversary set for a while, so thought it was time it saw some daylight. I used my new Hero Arts music background stamp. Love the fact that it's full A2 size and I don't have to line anything up.

Here's what I came up with. No sentiments yet - I'll leave the cards blank until I decide who to send them to and for what occasion:

This is one of Penny Duncan's fabulous files. You can see the rolled rose here and download the files here. If you have an electronic cutter, I suggest you check out the rest of Penny's blog. She makes a huge range of cutting files in all the main formats - SVG, DXF, GSD and PDF.

3. How did you make these flowers?

It's super easy. I used PTI's satin ribbon for these but you can use any kind of ribbon or strip of fabric. Take a needle and thread, put a knot in the thread, start at one end of the ribbon and, using a running stitch, stich close to one edge. Then just gather the ribbon along the thread until you have the flower the size you want. I overlap the ends a bit to make a rosette kind of shape. Put a button, pearl etc in the centre to cover up the little hole and you're done.

4. How do you tie your bows?

Most of my bows I just tie by hand. For double bows, like the one on this card, I use the bow easy. I use a 'cheaters' method and attach a strip of ribbon to the card front, then tie my bow separately and attach it with a glue dot. As for ribbon, I think PTI's grosgrain or saddle stitch ribbon produce the nicest bows. If you're looking for great tips, I found Dawn McVey's bow tying video really helpful. You can check it out here.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

I have an svg file for cutting rolled roses on my cricut, but it doesn't work so well with felt. That's because you need to use something like heat n bond to stiffen the felt before the cricut will cut it - ok if your felt item is going to be glued down, but not so useful if you want to roll it up!

Long story short, I ended up buying one of the rolled flower dies from MFT - My Favorite Things. The die cuts very well - even using a scrap of craft store felt for this one.

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Haven't posted for a few days because my Mum has had a very bad stroke and is in hospital. But I thought I'd pop in and schedule a few more posts. Would appreciate your thoughts and prayers for Mum and the family!

In the last few weeks, I've been working on some Christmas gifts. Decided to break out PTI's bookmark die and some felt. PTI's wool felt cuts like a dream and these are the result of a few hours of crafting: